Mayor London Breed is taking on San Francisco's far left. Can she prevail?
SAN FRANCISCO — When San Francisco Mayor London Breed arrived at the University of California, Davis for her freshman year, she saw her new classmates surrounded by family. Except for the friend who dropped her off — her belongings in two small bags — she came alone.
Breed would frequently make her way back to the notoriously unsafe housing project in the city’s Western Addition where she was raised by her grandmother. She came not just to visit but often because of tragedy.
“When I was coming home, it was for the funeral of somebody I grew up with,” Breed said in an interview in San Francisco’s ornate Beaux-Arts City Hall. “And I just thought, what if he was here with me? I just imagined them walking around campus, and this could be their life. And that’s what got me involved in public service.”
Breed, 47, is a rising star in California politics because of her stewardship of San Francisco during the pandemic, as well as her efforts to tackle crime, homelessness, addiction and education in a city that is famously — if not always accurately — known for its liberal, live-and-let-live ethos.
Up for reelection in 2023, Breed received national attention when she didn’t mince words as she declared a state of emergency in the
